I Believe the events recorded in The Book of Revelation happen in the order they are recorded with few if any exceptions.
I believe The Rapture happens at the midway point, after The Church's Tribulation but before God pours out His Wrath.

Pages

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Genealogy of The Antichrist: Seleucid Dynasty

Of the verses that have been taken as hinting at the Genealogy of The Antichrist. The connection to the Seleucid Dynasty I
view as the most Important. Yet there is good reason to argue even
that is only geographical. Until you notice in Daniel 11:36-45 the King
of the North (which earlier was the clear geographical identify of the Seleucid Empire) is an enemy of the Willful King. So the Seleucid
connection ought not be overlooked.

I see Daniel 8 as a sort of Evil Counterpart to Nathan's Prophecy in 2
Samuel 7. Nathan foretells a Son of David who will build The Temple and
reign over a prosperous time of peace. It's near fulfillment was in Solomon, but
it's ultimate fulfillment is the Reign of The Messiah.
Daniel 8 foretells a Little Horn of the Hellenistic Kingdoms who will
violate the Temple and "by peace shall destroy many". It's near
fulfillment was Antiochus Epiphanes, but it's finale ultimate
fulfillment will be in the Man of Sin spoken of by Paul in Second
Thessalonians.

In Christ White's study of Daniel 8, he mentioned something valid that I never noticed before. The first thing said about The Little Horn seems to apply
to Seleucus I who founded the dynasty, and doesn't fit Epiphanes well
at all. In verse 9

"And out of one of them came forth a little horn,
which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and
toward the pleasant land."

The "one of them" is one of the Four Horns.
Epiphanes did have campaigns that tried to emulate this, but his were all
ultimately failures. This fits well however the original Seleucus's campaigns
during the Wars of the Diadochi.

I've often struggled with the
fact that there were ultimately really Five not Fours kingdoms to emerge
from Alexander's divided Empire. Antipater-Cassander, Lysimachus,
Antigonos-Demetrius, Ptolmey, and Seleucus. I don't like allegorizing
The Bible's usage of numbers. Thanks to Chris White's insight I now
have a solution.

The Little Horn is the Seleucid Dynasty itself, not
simply two random individuals who descended from it. And the one of the
first four that it emerged out of is Ptolemy. Daniel 11:5 described the
first "King of The North" as "one of his princes" in reference to the
"King of The South". Also the Ptolemaic and Seleucid dynasties
intermarried a number of times, as I will address in the future.

I
want to address how people take from the "King of the South" and "King
of the North" terminology in Daniel 11 that the other two (cause their
still forcing themselves to see things in terms of four total) must be Kings of
the East and West. This is reading something into the text that isn't
there however. Yes at the beginning of this period Daniel 11 refers to
"shall be divided toward the four winds of heaven" but this is simply
an expression, and as such a rare case where I do consider it valid not to
dogmatically take the number used there literally.

The Seleucid
Empire, which is for many reasons indisputably the one defined as the
"King of The North", is called that because it's immediately to the north of Israel. It was NOT the northernmost of the Kingdoms, indeed,
during the time period in which these wars took place all of the
remaining Hellenistic kingdoms were both further north and further west
then the Seleucid lands were. Likewise Seleucus is the ONLY one that
could be described as The East. The reason I think The Bible preferred
to define it on it's Northerness rather then Easterness in relation to
Israel is because it's Capitol, Antioch, was directly north of
Jerusalem.

The Seleucid Dynasty came from the Macedonian
aristocracy, the royal and other elite families of Macedon claimed, like
the Spartan rulers, descent from Herakles. Herakles was a descendant of
Perseus and Andromeda, Perseus was a descendant of the Danoi and
Andromeda came from Joppa, a port city of Dan. Seleucus was one of the
very few of Alexander's generals to keep the wife Alexander made him
marry at Susa. Her name was Apama and her ancestry can be traced back to the earliest Persian rulers and trough them to Median rules and trough
them to Assyrian rulers. She was the mother of his successor as well as
other children.

Two important lesser royal houses become genealogically linked to the Seleucids, the rulers of Pontus and
Commagene. Gaius Julius Antiochus IV Epiphanes of Commagene assisted the Romans at the
siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD. And his children and grandchildren would
intermarry with descendants of the Herodian and Hamonean dynasties, as
well as Roman Patricians descended from Augustus though his
Granddaughter Julia The Younger, and also Gaius Cassius Longinus.
Interesting how the "Spear of Longinus" becomes linked to The Holy Grail
in Arthurian romances. I believe this Bloodline can be linked to the
Merovingian Bloodline, and thus to all Modern European Royalty and
Aristocracy.

However, the children of Antiochus I of Commagene
also intermarried with Parthrian royalty, and through them became
ancestral to all Persian and Armenian rulers by the Second Century A.D.
It is actually this Eastern descent from the Seleucid dynasty that is
far easier to reliably trace to modern times.

Now I go back to my
suggestion that the Seleucid Dynasty is Satan's counterpart to the
Davidic Dynasty. Jesus comes from two distinct lines of descent from two
different sons of David, as Matthew and Luke demonstrate (though only
Luke's through Mary is biological). What if The Antichrist likewise
reunites these two separate Eastern and Western lines of descent from
the Seleucids?

No comments:

Post a Comment

Follow by Email

About Me

I'm a Christian, I believe The Bible is the Inspired Infallible Inherent Word of God, I'm an Evangelical Universalist and a Libertarian Communist. I teach that The Bible does not condemn Homosexuality. And I'm a Nerd and Otaku.
On my blogs don't hesitate to leave comments on old posts.